Sunday, 20 November 2016

Only Independence can reverse a Welsh Brain drain.

The Tory architect of George Osborne’s “northern powerhouse” strategy and leaders of Britain’s largest northern cities are demanding that the government acts to reverse a major brain drain to the south of England, as new figures show that 310,000 graduates have left the north in the past decade.They go on to say About 31,000 highly qualified British resident workers have left the north each year in the past decade with only 23,500 a year moving in the opposite direction. The net deficit suggests an average of 7,500 highly qualified workers leaving annually, or 75,500 over a decade. The hole in the workforce has until now been filled by an inflow of 15,500 skilled foreign workers a year, but the Brexit vote has raised questions over whether such migration will be encouraged in the future.I am in no doubt that the situation in Wales is similar if not worse,For far to long we have lost some of our best people who have left Wales sometimes as they lured by an Oxbridge collage and Labour in Wales have sought to increase thisNearly three years ago the Wasting Mule reported that

Students from Wales are suffering from low self-esteem and a lack of academic self-confidence which is hampering efforts to send more to Oxford and Cambridge, Wales’ Oxbridge Ambassador has said.Torfaen Labour MP Paul Murphy said potential applicants believed they lacked specialist skills needed to successfully apply to top universities.Former Welsh Secretary Mr Murphy, who was appointed to the role by then-Education Minister Leighton Andrews in May, released the findings today as an interim report which probes the reasons why Wales has seen a decline in the number of students applying to Oxbridge. He will produce a final report next summer.He described the issue as “complex and multifaceted”, but suggested many students, teachers and parents have negative perceptions of Oxbridge, fearing potential applicants from less affluent backgrounds would “not fit in”.One of the report’s initial suggestions was to maximise pupils’ contact with local Oxbridge alumni.

What other government deliberately encourages its brightest to leave for an education in another country knowing full well many will not returnWhat we need i for Welsh Universities and Colleges to match Oxbridge and offer a first class Education , and not just Cardiff and Swansea.It is vital that Aberystwyth and Bangor has the potential to attract students from Y Fro Gymraeg (area of high numbers of Welsh speakers) and when they graduate there are jobs and opportunities to remain.Emigration from Y Fro is a bigger threat to the Welsh language than immigration of English speakers.But our the South Wales Valleys also lose their brightest and best if we are talking about regeneration then it makes sense to make sure that we have a future generation of highly qualified people living there.It would be interesting if there was a survey of how many top Scientist and Academics are living outside Wales.But it is not just the op echelons . We can't afford to lose any of the brightest of our young people.It might be a Chicken and Egg question of whether the Accademic Infrastructure is needed to keep our best qualified. Or we need the "brains" in place first.But we will be unable to neither,unless we have a government that has both the power and vision to make it so.For that to happen we need Independence , any other option will fail.